I can recognize the “happy place” look any day. It happens to me when I have entered into the third hour of those endless French dinners and have had my senses numbed from all the food and wine consumed.

I have had a couple of happy places, I have also visited the Moon and the stars, Saturn and all its rings, rewinded to moments of my childhood and tried to figure out when/how/why all this stuff about living in Holland has begun.

By the way, I like your site and it is nice to know what foreign people think about the Netherlands and these crazy people over there.
It is very amusing to read, also for the Dutch like me.
Besides that, some things you are used to do and find common, seems not so common in the eyes of foreigners and makes you think why you are doing it like that.

Sabrina – It’s good to know it can be used in all situations, not just Dutch ones :)

Martin – Thank you very much :) I experiences the reverse of what you just described myself this Christmas. The English tradition of Christmas crackers that is so normal to me was seen as such a strange and mad thing by my family in law. Hehe.

Sometimes it is good to see the things from a distance to see what weird things the people in your country are doing.
It also refreshes your thoughts about certain habits and traditions and you wonder how this tradition has grown on you.
I have the same with the circle birthday parties, I am used to it but if you see it through the eyes of a foreigner, it might look strange and even I wonder why it is like it is.
By the way, at birthday parties it is normal they also serve alcoholic drinks like beer, cognac, jenever, liqueurs or other drinks.
Also it is not celebrated always like this but in most families it is normal.

How do you celebrate birthdays in England?

I also read somewhere you find the table in the toilet strange but it has the function to check your droppings if they look healthy by colour and no have blood inside.
The newer toilets all have this table but older ones don’t have it.

Yes, the Christmas cracker tradition looks strange to us too but we have the heavy firework tradition (or carbid canons) on old years day where they throw dynamite at you and then I prefer your cracker tradition (^_^)

In fact we use the circle tradition also for Sinterklaas, Christmas and other party like events.
Maybe we should try different shapes like square shape or row shape (like if you are sitting in a train).
However,I think the main thing is that you find people you like and can talk with them about anything you are interested in.
People make it gezellig and if you have the right people it will become gezellig no matter where you are and how you are sitting or standing.
Sometimes alcoholic drinks will help a bit but also can work the other way around.
I have seen it at company parties, if you sit or standing, when there are no chairs to sit on, with the right people at a table it can become gezellig but with other people it will be utterly boring and you can’t to get home soon.
Then there also is the kliekjesvorming, some people who know each other get together and stay together all the party and you as a stranger stay outside het kliekje and are not accepted as part of het kliekje.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stuart is an accident prone Englishman who has been living in the Netherlands since 2001. Even his move to the country was an unintentional accident, the result of replying to a cryptic job advertisement he found one day in a local British magazine. Since then he has learned to love the Dutch (so much so that he married one of them) and now calls the country home. He started the blog Invading Holland in 2006 as a place to share his strange stories of language misunderstandings, cultural confusions and his own accident prone nature.